Thursday, April 7, 2016

After losing the primary election in Wisconsin Donald Trump decided
to rise above the fray and demonstrate his presidential and statesmanlike side.
After accusing Cruz, the governor of Wisconsin and the Republican establishment
of having stolen the election from him, Trump, through his campaign, offered up an analogy:

Ted
Cruz is worse than a puppet — he is a trojan horse, being used by the party
bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump.

One might question the political wisdom of a Republican
candidate who trashes a Republican governor who has an 80% approval rating
among members of his own party. And one might question the candidate’s using liberal talking points to attack said governor, but, when you are Trump, you do not reason why.
You let fly.

More importantly, from my perspective is this: comparing a Republican to
the Trojan horse is not a new idea. In fact, you read it here, on this blog,
first. Some of you, I take it, would rather not have, but still, fair is fair… the analogy was mine. The only difference is: I labeled the Donald himself as the Trojan horse.

The other difference between my analogy and the Trump campaign’s
was that mine made a lot more sense. But, that should not surprise anyone.

To be clear, I am not accusing the Trump campaign of having
read this blog. I am certainly not accusing it of having lifted my idea. It did not. For those who prefer the light of reason to embittered nastiness, here again is my Trojan horse analogy, from a post two weeks ago:

The
Democratic Party has had a very bad time of it during the Obama presidency.

But, if
you cannot beat the Republicans head to head, how can you beat them? You might
resurrect a tactic invented by one Odysseus during the Trojan War. You might
not remember the Trojan War, but it had been fought to a stalemate until the
cunning Odysseus decided to construct a giant horse and to offer it to the city
of Troy as a peace offering. The Trojans accepted the gift and lugged the large
horse into their city. Once they had gone to sleep the horse was opened up and
out popped Odysseus and a band of soldiers… who slaughtered the sleeping
Trojans and put an end to the war. The Trojan horse was a poisoned gift.

One
does not believe that Obama employed the same level of cunning, but he has
sufficiently addled the brains of enough people for something similar to have
happened. What could be better for the Democrats than to send a New York
Democrat into the heart of Republican country… as a gift. And why not have him
capture the hearts and minds of some Republicans while alienating enough others
to fracture the party. It would be the crowning glory of the Obama years, a
Republican Party marching to ignominious defeat behind a short-fingered
vulgarian with markedly Democratic leanings.

I am
not suggesting that this was planned out. Not at all. I am suggesting that when
you replace reason with emotion, you end up playing a role in someone else’s
fiction. And you do not even know it. The Democrats are watching the Republican
implosion. They can barely contain their glee.

2 comments:

Trump's loss in Wisconsin wasn't unexpected, but it is fun to see he didn't realize that. Whatever Trump's spell, it seems to be more of a southern thing. And surprisingly Hillary's strongest southern victories, besides Texas, seem to largely overlap Trumps.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016

What's interesting about the republicans over the last 16 some years is the complete loss of discipline. They used to be the party of focus and attention to details, and patience, a strategy to play the long game, and in some ways they still are, but not for president.

I don't know whether Cruz or Trump are the "Trojan horses", but I think its safe to call them both "vacuum candidates", candidates who rise in a vacuum of leadership.

No self-respecting person would run for president in the current atmosphere of tea-party, purity test, witch hunts. McCain in 2008 did his best (damn poor), to stand as a man of reason, and Romney in 2012 did his best (not much better), to also stand for reason, but we just need to accept reason has been lost.

There is no reason for a republican president, because republican "values" do not represent the values of the majority.

What's amazing is that Trump makes Cruz look like a hero, someone who might restore reason to the Republicans, but of course, there's no truth to that. Cruz's unlikeability is completely hidden under Trump's shadow.

It's a mess. It's not the mess "the establishment" wants, but it's the mess they deserve for creating a divide and conquer strategy to power.

Republicans collectively represent the vigor of a 2 year old, the ability to say no to anything they don't like, which is everything that isn't the sugar-coated garbage they're used to, and the virtue to blame others when they puke on themselves after eating too much of their own crap.